The husband, the baby, and I aren’t the most structured folks. On weekends, we’re usually pretty pooped and aren’t rushing out to kid-centric activities. We like to take the opportunity to sleep in, have some yummy breakfast, and chill out. But we don’t want to just sit in the house for two days, so we start looking for stuff to do that’s not too heavily schedule-dependent and is something that we all enjoy. We go to the movies often enough, but sometimes we want to do something a little healthier than sit in the dark and eat popcorn with “butter.”
So, we go roller skating.
I used to go roller skating a lot when I was a kid. I’m fairly certain that every birthday party from third grade to sixth grade was at the Ches-a-Rena in Cheswick, a kind of rundown town outside of Pittsburgh. But once the birthday parties starting requiring closets for activities that would take about seven minutes, I just kind of stopped going roller skating altogether. I went once in college and was surprised to learn that whatever skating skills that I had were gone. I had a lot of opportunities to ponder this while lying on my back and staring at the ceiling of the rink, waiting to make sure that I hadn’t done any spinal damage by confirming that I could still wiggle my toes.
But a few years ago, the husband and I went to an all-night skating party and competition in Detroit. It was, no lie, one of the coolest things I’ve ever experienced. Skaters came from all over to compete. When I saw a guy fly past me, backwards, on the front wheels of just one of his skates while extending his other leg in the air, I realized that there was way more to roller skating that standing in line for the limbo and wondering if Michael was going to ask me to couple-skate.
As you can probably guess, it’s tough to get good video of people rolling past on skates, but here’s a pretty decent capture of some of the stuff that we saw that night. So freakin’ badass.
At the end of the night, we were sweaty and inspired. It had been an excellent workout, but more importantly, it was FUN. Over the next year, we started going more often, taking the baby with us to afternoon sessions. I had an esecially slow time getting to be competent again. For some reason, I wasn’t able to lift my left foot off the ground at all, which made for an odd, circular limp, but I eventually got the hang of it again.
Last year, all three of us purchased our own skates and we now try to go skating at least twice a month. I highly recommend it as a family activity, but if you haven’t been skating since grade school, there are a few things you should know.
1) Yes, you will fall. At least a few times, especially if you haven’t been in awhile. Keep your knees bent and your eyes up and eventually your body will get with the program.
2) Unless specifically stated otherwise, everyone skates in a counterclockwise direction. Little kids especially operate under the delusion that they can kind of just go wherever, and this is how collisions happen.
3) Skating rink etiquette dictates that slower skates stay on the inside while faster skaters stay to the outside. This might seem counterintuitive, as less confident skaters instinctively want to hold on to something, like the wall. But trust me, it’s best to just make your way to the inner part of the rink and take your time there. Faster, more skilled skaters need a lot of room and will come flying around the corner and are liable to crash into someone gripping the wall. You’re safer on the inside and it basically forces you to get a better grip on what you’re doing.
3) The DJ will probably suck. Especially at an afternoon session, the kids tend to dictate what is played. Expect to be pummeled with a Bieber/Swift/Cyrus onslaught. Just think happy thoughts. And try not to strangle the asshole in the booth for playing two Eminem songs in a row and then following that up with a new Metallica song. (This happened last weekend and I nearly had a depressive episode in the middle of the rink, such was the shittiness.) My husband is a DJ and I know it kills him a little bit inside every time we have to pretend that we want to skate to that horrible “Dynamite” song.
For the record, this was my skating jam back in the day:
4) Your kids will be okay. It is a little nerve-wracking to see your preshus angels wobbling around on wheeled boots, but know that they’re having a blast, exerting some energy, and getting a chance to express themselves in a different way. And once they get good at it, there’s no way they won’t look cool.
